Sumerian is perhaps the most difficult of cuneiform languages and it has long been a source of fascination for scholars and laity alike. This examination of Sumerian hymns from the British Museum was one of the early attempts to grapple with the difficulties of the language. Limiting his study to the hymns contained in the collection of the British Museum at that time, Vanderburgh provided a transliteration, translation, and commentary of four important documents – hymns to Bel, Sin, Adad, and Tammuz, respectively. Since these deities were known in the world of the Hebrew Bible, finding independent information on them sheds light on the biblical world as well.

Frederick Augustus Vanderburgh (1847-1923) was a clergyman who earned his Ph.D. and taught at Columbia University.